Flirting with Dreamtime
by RandomDiversion
Summary: Haruka dares visit one of Kantarou's dreams.


**Flirting with Dreamtime**

There's a story, a thousand years old—told by humans and youkai alike—of a tengu who tried to aid a famous human warrior by appearing in his dreams to give tactical information about the positions of his enemy.

The next day the human showed his gratitude by killing the tengu on sight, and went on to win his battle using the information the tengu had furnished.

After that, there are no more stories of tengu entering human dreams.

Did we stop, as a result of that warrior's reaction? Did we learn a valuable lesson in survival? Did we lose the ability, or did humans change to be resistant to it? Did both sides just stop talking about it?

I would ask Sugino, but I know already what he would say—don't try it. It is too dangerous. It is too intimate. Never trust a human. He'll take what you give him, then go nuts and kill you, just like that warrior killed his benefactor.

And here I am, on a quiet night, drawn to try—because of something Sugino said.

We were having lunch at a Ramen house and, having finished her soup, Muu-chan had fallen asleep next to Sugino in the booth. Her foot twitched.

"I wonder what she's dreaming of."

"Mm, riding a bicycle," answered Sugino, with hardly a pause in his eating.

"How do you know that?" I asked, slightly distracted by the sight of a balding man walking outside with a petty-youkai chewing what was left of his hair. I wondered if he had a headache as well. Kantarou would have scolded the little monster.

"Good grief," said Sugino, putting his spoon down in his soup and leaning partway across the table to scrutinize me. "You _are_ still a tengu, aren't you? You know how to visit dreams. She's my wife, after all."

"A bicycle?"

He went back to eating.

"It's a wish of hers, but humans don't make them that small. If she keeps on about it maybe eventually I'll inspire one of them to make a functional model for dolls..." he said through a mouth full of noodles, "and surprise her with it.

"Have you ever visited Kantarou's dreams?"

"Why would I do that?"

"Oh my," he sighed. "The way you've come to dote on each other, I thought..."

"What? And I don't 'dote' on him, I'm just following orders."

"Well, it's probably better that you haven't, then. Most humans are just dirty little animals dominated by their desires," he muttered. "Kantarou probably—well, humans often dream of sex, usually with people way out of their league. And he does rather obsess on you..."

I grimaced. "For that, you're paying for my soup."

"Broke again aren't you?" he said lightly. "Fine, some of my offerings come in coin. I'm good for it."

"If he wanted me he'd just order it."

"He's too cowardly. Besides, " he said between mouthfuls, "what he really wants is your love, not just your body, and he can't order that. He can only order you to fake it."

I tried not to be stunned by his words, and the conversation turned to trivial matters. But his speculations about Kantarou kept gnawing at my mind.

At night, Kantarou has the house warded with talismans against common forms of mischief. Most, but not all of these, make exception for myself and Youko, though both she and I are strong enough to overcome them with effort should the occasion arise.

The question remains, how will he react? The warrior in the story hunted down the tengu the following day. Kantarou, however...can respond directly in the spirit plane. If he perceives my contact as a threat and panics...

I lie in meditation. I perceive Youko sleeping in her room, dreaming softly like a puff of fur. Kantarou...is like the bend of a reflection on water, before the first ripple is raised. His aura, in sleep, lays lightly throughout the house. Ordinarily I move through it paying little notice. It has become a comforting element of 'home', along with his scent and Youko's.

In the spirit plane I approach. I worry a little, what I might find.

Now barely I can perceive his dream, and it is innocent. I am relieved. He is walking in a field of flowers in the countryside. Youko, in his imagination—for she is not visiting him—is pouncing in fox form on what I can guess are imaginary mice. And he imagines me in human form, laying on my back on a rock in the sun, admiring clouds.

I look contented.

_Is this a wish?_

Peaceful and familiar, a place maybe we have visited, and I have forgotten.

I no longer have these kinds of dreams.

I am tempted simply to wait and bask, under this comfortable imaginary sun, for however long this vision lasts. I relax, despite my initial caution.

If Kantarou were another tengu, he would perceive me here, and either greet me or bid me leave. But he has no experience in these matters. If he feels anything unusual, as yet he will have no knowledge to interpret it as someone else's presence.

_I can go now, and he will never know I was here. _

"Who's there?" he says, suddenly. The rest of his imaginings vanish instantly into a fog, into which he stares blindly, first one direction, than another.

_I've underestimated him._

His energy gathers more densely around him. But it does not have the feeling of a defense.

"It's you, isn't it? It has been so long..."

_Huh?_

"I wanted to tell you—I found him—Haruka –Onikui, I mean. But then I thought maybe that was why you left. Maybe he scared you away..."

The energy he has gathered thins out, searching gently, as for something that is delicate and easily overwhelmed. It feels like a warm breath of air, so gentle as not to loft the seeds on a dandelion.

"You're much stronger now," he says, "are you strong enough to tell me who you are? Or...or show me? Please. You know you are welcome here. I can make you welcome here..."

_He has been visited before? By who? The ghost of an ancestor? Another tengu?_

I bring more of my own power, cautiously; he looks suddenly directly at me, and I know he has perceived me.

"Haruka?" he looks at me with delighted incredulity, which broadens into a smirk. "Ah, it is you, isn't it? But, you look like a downy chick."

_A chick?_

I realize I have projected a child-like and animalistic form, having been cautioned when I learned this art to approach other youkai in a non-threatening way. It is by empathy and not my projected appearance that Kantarou knows who I am.

"You were a cute kid."

_'Cute'? How dare you!_

I change my form, and he laughs. In this dream-space I can discern the laughter rippling from delight rather than derision.

"Now all haughty, you are. To think, all those years it was you."

"You're mistaken. I have not visited..."

"You have. But...maybe you don't remember..."

_He's...happy to have me here? _ Despite myself, he has made this 'space' so comfortable and so easy, I cannot help but be drawn in more closely.

_Careful. He is only human._

"It was before we met, while you were sealed, but after I became serious in my studies, serious in my search. Many times, I felt someone near in my dreams, but I didn't know who. When I tried to reach out, it was like grabbing smoke.

At the time I thought it must have been a ghost. An ancestor, maybe. I tried to be hospitable, hoping it would find a way to tell me what it wanted.

You must have dreamed of me, too, or of someone capable of freeing you, at least. You must have found me, maybe because of that little shrine I made you when I was a child."

"I don't remember dreaming."

"I know now. It was certainly you, Haruka."

"I would have been Rin, or Onikui, then..."

"By any name, still you. I perceive the same elements in you now."

He reaches for me, and his hand finds me solid; this contact is firmer than I intended, and I realize in his crude and untutored way, Kantarou is trying to enhance it. I may have unlocked this door, but he is assisting what little he can, to keep it open.

_Greatly underestimated him..._

"Don't learn this, human," I murmur, surprising myself.

"Eh?"

"Tengu road..."

His energy draws back. Without the distraction of reaching for me, the fog of his dream coalesces quickly to re-form his imaginary meadow, containing now only he and I. He allows me to maintain the contact without his assistance.

As he releases his effort, I ease more strength to the connection. But then the colors and the details become unnaturally crisp.

"Uh?" he makes a frightened little noise. He doesn't realize it, but for an instant his clothes disappeared; he likely felt exposed and vulnerable. I've come too near, too fast.

"Are you okay?" After a moment's chill, I feel that gentle warmth again, as though he wants to reach for me, not retreat, but he is guarding his feelings.

"I-I think I know why the samurai killed the tengu," he says quietly. "How to say this without scaring you? It's—intimate?"

"Uh..." _Yes, I have come too near._

"I don't mind, Haruka. I'm a researcher, not a samurai—and I know you. So it's okay. But if I were a Samurai, I don't think I would like to meet a stranger in a dream this way."

"Should I leave?"

"Stay, please. The stories about tengu doing this are so rare, I didn't know whether to believe them. It's pretty cool.

"What made you decide to visit me tonight?"

I feel my face grow hot, and worry that he perceives my embarrassment.

"I—" _I can't tell him that I came here to spy on him! _"I just wanted to see if I could still do it. A-after being unsealed, I mean. I haven't tried it since then."

"Ah..." he says.

He doesn't really know how to consciously project his appearance in this plane, so I perceive him mostly as he might appear in physical reality. He has his head tilted back and is looking at me through partly narrowed eyes.

"...in other words, you wanted to spy on my dreams and didn't expect me to catch you at it," he grins.

I cringe a little.

"What? Were you hoping to catch me in bed with someone?" he smirks, and suddenly produces a fan out of nowhere, his eyes flirting with me over the top.

_He _can _project, a little..._

"I'm...going to go now..." I draw back, but not quickly enough.

"Haruka!"

I have no choice but to pause.

"I'm sorry if I upset you. Thank you—for visiting, and for clearing up the mystery of who visited my dreams before. I liked this."

"Is that all?"

"Yes."

I open my eyes. The house is quiet. The room is dark except for the light of stars and a sliver of moon. His aura pervades the house, like his scent and Youko's, comforting elements of home.

He's still sleeping, and I dare hope he will think it was an ordinary dream.

_Yeah. Who do I think I'm fooling?_

_He's not angry, though._

I fall asleep, and I dream—of laying on my back on a warm stone in a sunny field, watching clouds with my master at my side.

I feel contented.


End file.
